


Mining Rue

by Triskaidekalogue



Category: MapleStory
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 08:19:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triskaidekalogue/pseuds/Triskaidekalogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They can <em>definitely</em> take the sky from you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Femslash February.

Claudine is just shy of twenty when Belle comes to her with tales of a local Resistance that will break the iron grip of the Black Wings and send them packing with their tails between their legs.

"It's all ordinary townies like you and me," she says, savoring the words as if she can already taste Edelstein's liberation. "The fake contraband tip-off last month? Bonjasky's disappearance right before the Black Wings wanted her for questioning? That was the Resistance. That was us!"

There's a lot more along these lines, every word of it blazing with excitement. Claudine just looks at her.

Belle returns the look, in spades. "There isn't an organization in the world that wouldn't be better and stronger for having you in it," she insists.

"I'm flattered," Claudine says dryly. "But right now, it's all I can do to take care of Ulrika and prepare myself for Dr. Toxie's practice."

"And if the Black Wings shut it down?" Belle demands.

"They can't _shut down_ the skills I learn or the knowledge I acquire." To underscore her point, Claudine makes another note in the margin of the textbook on her lap. It's out of date, like most of Dr. Toxie's modest collection, but he likes to remind her that the basics haven't changed that much.

Belle's still standing there, so Claudine meets her gaze and sighs. "Look," she says, "whether the Black Wings shut down Dr. Toxie's clinic or leave town right now or turn into ribbon pigs overnight, people are still going to get sick. Get hurt. I'm just one person, and it's not like Isabeau Toxie has any interest in following her parents' footsteps, so who else is going to look after Edelstein's health?"

The disappointment brimming in Belle's eyes seems to go beyond tyrants and townfolk, but nothing is going to come between Claudine and her duty. Not even Belle.


	2. Chapter 2

Claudine is twenty-three when the new Council president decides to build his mansion of office where the primary school stands. Headmaster Ferdi and the burly kindergarten teacher, Elex, try to gather signatures for a petition, but the few who end up signing render their names as illegible scrawls. The demolition bots turn up anyway, the week Ulrika turns eleven.

(The difference between an eleven-year-old and a grade-E demolition bot is that the eleven-year-old will probably obey if you yell at her to stop, that there are still living beings inside the structure she's about to knock down.)

Nobody dies and nobody's seriously injured. A few of the children find their escapes obstructed by the growing piles of rubble that used to be their little school, but the staff -- Elex, mostly -- manage to clear them out in time. Ulrika wobbles home in a dust-whitened uniform, ankle sprained but otherwise unhurt.

After seeing to Ulrika that evening, Claudine goes for a pre-curfew stroll. Lately she's often come across Belle patrolling near the skyport in her trainee police gear, and tonight is no different. She touches Belle's arm when she passes.

"Multitasking is underrated," Claudine murmurs. "Tell me where to sign up."

Belle makes no reply, but the next morning, Claudine opens her bedroom curtains to find a black domino mask tucked into the windowsill. When she opens the window and picks the mask up, a tracery of fine stitching reveals itself under her fingertips: crude approximations of a book, a circle, a constable's star.

A circular thing between the police station and... ah. Claudine smiles.

"Dramatics," she says aloud, affectionately.

That night, Belle guides her through a maze of steam tunnels, a green mask obscuring her own face. She shows her the subtle trail signs Resistance members have left to mark the way for new recruits: screws, bolts, streaks of rust. Unidentifiable litter. "But you'll soon know the path by heart anyway," Belle assures her. Claudine hopes she's right.

They stop before a riveted hatch that boasts as thick a layer of patina as any other metal fixture in the tunnels. Belle raps out a complex pattern on its surface, waits out a silent count, then says very clearly, "The androgyne's poetry could make a child weep." Claudine gives her the look, which she ignores.

"I'd like to hear that poem myself someday," comes a muffled voice from behind the door, and with a metal shriek, it swings open. The pretty, dark-haired woman standing there offers them a faint smile and ushers them in. Her mask is red. She has the most heartbreakingly gorgeous smile Claudine has ever seen. "Newbie?" she says to Claudine as they walk past cinderblock and massive sheet-metal walls.

Before Claudine can answer, a shout comes echoing from around the distant corner. "Cat, your beast is destroying my maps!"

Belle rolls her eyes in response. With an apologetic wave to the other two, she hurries on ahead.

"Ah -- yes, I am," Claudine says belatedly. "New, I mean." She pauses. Was that a _growl_? "I, uh. I'm a better doctor than I am a conversationalist."

The red-masked woman laughs. "That's what we recruited you for."

They round the corner. Belle is sitting on the ground, affectionately scolding what appears to be a grown panther, while a person in a padded, full-body teddy bear suit stands over them with folded arms and tapping foot. The suit features tan-and-brown checks.

Claudine carefully doesn't stare.

Red Mask claps her on the back. "Welcome to the Resistance, newbie," she says. Several of the watching maskers join the laughter, tired but friendly. "Fellow in the plaid bear's our chief mechanic, handsome over there teaches battle magic -- smile, handsome! -- and your pal is thinking of starting a mounted division. On carnivorous cats. Abyss alone knows where she gets these ideas."

"And you?"

Red Mask sketches a shallow bow. "Thievery, roguery, and all-purpose skullduggery, at your service." She leans over and says quietly, "Everyone already knows who you are, Dr. Lang -- you're the only medical in town aside from the Toxie girl. Let's even it up between you and me. My name's Anja. Don't wear it out."

Claudine flashes Red Mask -- Anja -- a surprised but grateful smile. Then she says for all to hear, "I hope you won't have much need of my services."

They have plenty of need for her services.

They only ask her to come along on the riskier jaunts: diverting a guarded bumper shipment of rue from the mines, faking a disillusioned Black Wing's death in return for the information she gave up. On the night they stand guard for a potential Ossyrian ally, the battlemage's protege nearly loses his left leg below the knee but for her on-site care.

On other nights, though, they come to her. Through the manhole in the alley by her house, if at least half of them can walk; through the alleys overland if not. Bringing a barely-trained extra like Claudine out on stealth work is just asking for trouble, but that doesn't mean Anja's missions don't collect injuries from time to time.

"You know, I would have treated you regardless of whether I'd joined up," Claudine says to Anja. She pulls another shard of glass from the other woman's forearm. This was a manhole visit -- everyone ambulatory -- so they're in the cellar, where they're less likely to wake Ulrika. Veil, freshly sewn up, has already left. "Security issues?"

"Hah. Uhn!" One shard is buried rather more deeply than the others. Anja's other hand goes white-knuckled despite Claudine's delicate probing; the proper anaesthetic is being saved up for serious procedures, and painkiller patches are no substitute. "Security issues for you, actually. Didn't want -- ah -- didn't want to risk drawing suspicion. To you. If you hadn't chosen the double life."

"Thoughtful of you," Claudine says. "Unnecessary, but thoughtful. I know how to deflect suspicion."

Anja bares her teeth in something like a grin. "Thoughtful? Nah. Just -- ah -- smart. Someone like you. Wouldn't want someone like you going all revenge quest on me if something went wrong. _Scary._ "

"Hah."

The last shard falls with a clink into the repurposed dish. Claudine swabs the blood away with a disinfectant-soaked cloth and threads a sterile needle -- most of Anja's cuts are small, but two are just long enough to warrant stitches. She casts about for a topic with which to occupy her patient. For lack of ideas she settles on: "So, if it's all right to ask... why did you join?"

"You mean deep and abiding love for Edelstein isn't enough?" Anja grunts as the first stitch pulls through her skin. "Ahhh. All right. I actually moved here. Couple years back. From Mu Lung, same as your folks. Thought I'd set up with the pilots. Protection -- from sky pirates. A bit of smuggling on the side. That kind of thing. Nothing -- ah -- nothing big."

Claudine ties off her thread, snips it free, and moves onto the other, longer cut. "Sounds exciting."

"Peaceful," Anja corrects. "Bit of -- fighting -- once in a while. Mostly just steady income, free travel, beautiful views. Really beautiful." The grimace-grin flashes again. "I liked one of the pilots well enough to -- request a permanent post with her. She said yes to the permanent security but. No to the other bit."

Claudine raises an eyebrow. "Oh?"

Anja's laugh turns into a hiss of pain halfway through. "She loved her ship so much there wasn't any room left over for a human lover," she says. "It's okay, I got over it, we're still friends. Anyway. It was good. We were happy. Then the -- ah -- then the Black Wings moved in." She breathes deeply, sharply. "You know what happened to the dirigible service."

She does know. Edelstein has always relied on its disproportionately well-trafficked skyport to obtain goods and news from the lowlands; Mount Edel grows good rue ore and nothing much else, and landbound shipments wouldn't make it up the steep, rocky terrain. When the Black Wings moved in, the skyport was one of the first places they secured. With the dirigibles under their control, nothing could move in or out of Edelstein without their knowledge -- and approval. If anything, the restrictions have only tightened over time.

"Well," Anja continues, "my friend says, screw this boarshit. Starts smuggling bigger things. Turns it into a blessed _charity_ , hah. Then of course the Black Wings find us out. They ground her. Ground her ship. Void her license."

The second set of stitches is done. Claudine knots and snips that thread too, changes her gloves and reaches for the bandages.

"So there's the two of us out of a job and Edelstein cut off for real and Amelie, that's my friend, Amelie is just completely destroyed. Like I said, her ship, that's her one true love, right? Eventually she gets a job with the mechanics and I odd-job myself a roof over my head and soup in my bowl, but seeing Amelie grounded, that's the kind of thing that could drown a straight year of laughing."

"I'm sorry," Claudine says quietly, tying off the bandage. She's sorry she asked. She doesn't want to know what comes next.

Anja sighs. "One of the first missions I asked for when Checky recruited me was to smuggle Amelie out of here, get her someplace where she could fly again. One run, not a long-term operation."

Claudine stills. "Did they agree?"

"Kept asking until they said yes, didn't I?" A real smile lifts the corners of her mouth. "I headed that mission. Checky made me an instructor the day after that. I sleep at HQ nowadays."

"Instructor in skullduggery?" Claudine asks dryly, relieved.

"And stealth swashbuckling. You got it."

They share a silent laugh, and when Anja shrugs her overcoat on and slips back out into the night, Claudine thinks, _I could offer her a roof over her head._

**Author's Note:**

> One particular plot-point is giving me trouble, but I promised I'd post at the beginning of March whatever fic I had by February's end. This is either half or two-thirds of the whole story, although it can certainly be read as a terribly structured standalone if the whim takes you.


End file.
